Everything a/b this machine is superb — except for one little glitch that even an hour on the phone with tech support couldn't solve:

The printer's touch screen provides a "Scan to Computer" (or walk-up scan) option, which means I can drop an original on the glass or the ADF, and select the format I want my scan saved in. But, if I choose PDF, the final is always grayscale. Other formats (like jpg) scan in color. And scanning to PDF from the desktop, with the HP utility or VueScan, results in color. I have run through every setting on the Mac and the printer's onboard settings, too.

The tech had me uninstall the software, delete any related prefs, and re-install, plus a firmware update. Still no joy. Scan to Computer as PDF still yields only grayscale.

This is not a hill to die on for me, because walk-up scanning is not something I would do as a rule, and scanning from the desktop is problem-free. But, if anyone has any ideas, I'd like to hear 'em.

Good idea! It scanned in color to the memory card (actually give me the option of color or grayscale, along with resolution, paper size, etc.). So now I wonder if this may be an Acrobat thing, since scans to other formats are fine, as are scans to PDF from the desktop.

Like I said earlier, it's not a hill to die on since walk-up scanning is not something I normally do. But maybe I'll post this issue on the Adobe Forums and see if there's any answers.

It scanned in color to the memory card (actually give me the option of color or grayscale, along with resolution, paper size, etc.)

So it gave different options going to the card? That kind of tells me that it's something in the scanner software on the computer telling the printer what its capabilities are.

If you pull out the Ethernet cable, make sure it's not connecting wirelessly either, it will probably tell you no PC connected, which means it's looking for the software to make it's decision on what to do. Maybe when the built in printer scanning software commingles with the PC software it's not seeing the same Save As options as the built in printer software gives when going to the card.

Acrobat only opens the file, it shouldn't affect output from a device since Acrobat X doesn't install a printer driver. You have a clean system, we didn't do a migration so there isn't any Adobe 9 or earlier PDF print driver. Is there a setting in the HP software that involves Acrobat such as setting the default app to open a PDF scan in?

A way to test Acrobat is to uninstall Acrobat and see if that's affecting it.

I did more than uninstall and re-install. I just upgraded to Acrobat XI Pro and cleaned out anything and everything related to older versions — Prefs, Application Support, etc. — on the MBP, too. Did everything short of sacrificing a small woodland animal. No change. I give up.

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